Forum Activity for @tmc-chase

Racing History Minute - June 29, 1952 - Langhorne

Stock Car Racing History

This Racing History Minute post is about a NASCAR race - but not a stock car race. Well, at least not about a stock body race.

NASCAR's short-lived, single-season Speedway Division ran what is believed to be its final race on June 29, 1952. (However, I've seen some references that the cars may have return for a race or two in 1953.)

But if indeed the June 29th race was the final one, at least it was a doozy. The cars ran at the legendary, one-mile, dirt Langhorne Speedway.

Some of the promoted southern drivers expected to race in the event included Buck Baker, Al Keller, Bill Miller and Buddy Shuman. Buck and Keller made the trip, but apparently Shuman did not. Racing-Reference seems to indicate Bill Miller made the trip - but may have withdrawn his Raymond Parks entry for reasons I don't yet know.

MIller's withdrawal made for an interesting turn of events as he was 2nd in the points to Baker with a mathematical chance of overtaking him - especially with a win.

Race previews

Tom Cherry won the pole in his stock Mercury engine powered roadster. Wally Campbell qualified alongside Cherry. The two of them then apparently put on a whale of a show for the fans.

Cherry, Keller, Campbell and Baker mixed up the lead for nearly the first 30 of the race's 100 laps. (Photos were included in Greg Fielden's Rumblin Ragtops book and shared by Genuine Jack at Randy Ayers Modeling Forum .)

Cherry took over for a 35-lap stretch in the mid portion of the race.

With about 40 laps to go, Campbell and Cherry swapped the lead on 3 consecutive laps before Cherry finally got solid positioning in front of Campbell. Wally hung near the tail of Cherry's car and tried to force him into a mistake.

But it was not to be for Campbell. He had to make a fuel stop late in the race. Cherry motored home to the win after leading the final 35 laps. Steve Yanigan - who didn't lead a lap - passed Campbell during his pit stop and claimed 2nd, one lap down to the winner. Campbell returned to the the track, but he had to settle for third place - 2 laps down to Cherry.

Race report from Reading Eagle

With the cessation of the Speedway Division series after seven races in 1952, Buck Baker was crowned as the points champion. Hmm, I don't recall that championship being mentioned in his accolades during his induction to the NASCAR Hall Of Fame.

Genuine Jack also posted a pic of Cherry's restored roadster with Mercury HP at Randy Ayers.

A bit more descriptive article about the June 29th race ran in the Eagle about a month later as a preview to an upcoming match race between Cherry and Campbell. Though the Speedway Division was terminated, the two agreed to race their same speedway cars in a race at the same track.Unfortunately, the July 28th edition of the Eagle just not include the results of the match race.

Cherry's NASCAR career didn't end with the Speedway Division series. He went to Daytona Beach in February 1953 and finished And would ya look at the brew advertised in the June 30, 1952 Reading Eagle as the nation began the countdown to the 4th of July! I may well have one myself this coming weekend as I attend what I still refer to as the Firecracker 400 at Daytona. Bill Blair Sr. won the race, and Cherry finished 9th out of 57 cars.

Fin	Driver	Car	Laps
1	Tom Cherry	Mercury	100
2	Steve Yanigan	Mercury	99
3	Wally Campbell	Ford	98
4	Tony Bonadies	Chrysler	97
5	Tex Keene	Mercury	94
6	Bob Halston	Nash	93
7	Gene Darragh	Ford	90
8	Mike Magill	GMC	88
9	Buck Baker	Cadillac	87
10	Lyle Scott	DeSoto	80
11	Charlie Miller	Ford	74
12	Pete Peterson	Oldsmobile	73
13	Mickey Fenn	Mercury	72
14	Budd Olsen	Oldsmobile	62
15	Frankie Schneider	Ford	61
16	Al Keller	Cadillac	60
17	Dutch Schaefer	Ford	59
18	Bob Johnson	Kaiser	56
19	Sam Waldrop	Ford	54
20	Steve McGrath	DeSoto	37
21	Jiggs Peters	Ford	26
22	Len Brown	Kaiser	5

updated by @tmc-chase: 06/28/17 10:49:40PM

The driver with a 100% batting average

Stock Car Racing History

Burke's win at Oakland was part of a NASCAR GN triple-header on October 14, 1951.

http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/forum/topics/racing-history-minute-october-14-1951?commentId=1981311%3AComment%3A860440

Buffalo NY - a lost GN race?

Stock Car Racing History

Another race preview article from September 29th Buffalo Courier Express

Buffalo NY - a lost GN race?

Stock Car Racing History

Dave, I was expecting you to know the answer. After all, I'm finding these articles in NY newspapers through a search engine at  http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

updated by @tmc-chase: 06/18/17 10:09:45AM

Buffalo NY - a lost GN race?

Stock Car Racing History

I suppose it's possible the race was rained out. If so, Otto likely could not have rescheduled it because of the Vernon race the next day and only 3 remaining races in the season to close the year. If it did get rained out / cancelled, that could also explain why I'm not finding any race report.

Buffalo NY - a lost GN race?

Stock Car Racing History

This one is for Alex FL Racing Fan who enjoys the challenge of seeking out lost races. This post includes a bit of info but a whole lot of uncertainty and unanswered questions as well.

In digging around for info about the June 18, 1950 race at Vernon Fairgrounds, I stumbled across a couple of articles about a NASCAR Grand National race at Buffalo's Civic Stadium held on Saturday, September 30, 1950. The race was run the day before the GN circuit's return trip to Vernon on October 1 - its 2nd and final race at that track.

This race is not included in Greg Fielden's Forty Years Vol 1 book. Nor is it referenced on racing-reference.info or ultimateracinghistory.com.

Newspaper ad from September 30 Niagara Falls Gazette.

Race preview from September 30 Tonawanda Evening News. Similar articles were found in the Niagara Falls paper and Buffalo Courier Express.

Oddly, I cannot find a race report to know who won the race. Ed Otto promoted the race. Looks like he did a great job getting the word out to the area newspapers to help sell tickets. But once the money was banked, he may not have been as interested in ensuring news of the event went to the same papers.

Many of the papers I've found jump from Saturday to Monday. I'm unsure if the Sunday editions are missing or simply weren't published then. Either way, perhaps by Monday the race on Saturday was old news.

I'm also unclear if it was indeed a legit GN race. The Short Track Division wasn't formed until 1951 so I can rule it out as a race from that series. And it seems clear with the drivers promoted for the race that the event was not a modified-sportsman race.

NASCAR also had an Eastern Late Model series. As I understand it, the cars were comparable to the GN cars but ran races along the Atlantic seaboard and into the New England states. It was later reformed into what became the Busch North Series and now the K&N East Series. What I DON'T know is if the Eastern Late Model series existed as early as 1950.

I have found other articles where Otto promoted NASCAR sanctioned late model events at Civic Stadium including a New York state championship race where drivers raced at Vernon, Buffalo and Monroe County Fairgrounds in Rochester. Example from October 7, 1950:

Perhaps in this case, Otto paid show money to the big dawgs in town for Vernon to run a late model event in Buffalo as an "unofficial" GN race.

The "GN" race was the headliner for a slate of other races that night - again leading me to believe this was a NASCAR-sanctioned race but not a GN one.

From Buffalo Courier Express. The fact the cars had to be limited to 1946-forward does tend to favor the rce being a GN one. Yet that may be a convenient rule since the GN drivers would be bringing those cars anyway to race at Vernon.

That ought to give y'all a bit to chew on for a while, huh?

updated by @tmc-chase: 05/07/19 05:59:19PM

Racing History Minute - June 18, 1950

Stock Car Racing History

This one is for RR members Bill Blair and Eric Cardona. Eric asked about Vernon Fairgrounds Speedway about 10 months ago here:

http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/forum/topics/vernon-fairgrounds

In NASCAR's second season of strictly stock / Grand National racing, Ed Otto may well have been the hardest working employee on Bill France's payroll. He was already promoting races all over the northeast, and he leveraged those relationships to help expand NASCAR's footprint in the area.

One such race promoted by Otto and sanctioned by NASCAR as a GN event was a 200-lap feature at Vernon Fairground's half-mile dirt track on June 18, 1950.

The race was held the day before the 1st anniversary of NASCAR's first Strictly Stock race on June 19, 1949 at Charlotte (see Tim Leeming's RHM ).

Fans who didn't or couldn't attend the race could still hear it. The race was broadcast over the airwaves on a station with simply natural call letters for racing: WRUN. I'm guessing this had to be a pretty novel concept for NASCAR races that early in its history.

Another seemingly novel concept about the race was to track lap leaders throughout the race - and communicate the info to the fans.

One of the more anticipated cars to be seen in the race was the Joe Merola's Tucker. Merola qualified the Tucker in the Poor Man's 500 at Canfield, OH a couple of weeks earlier on May 30th. But he broke an axle before the race began and never completed a lap. (A good read about the Tucker  was published by Hemmings back in 2012.)

Another story line for the race was Us vs. Them. Unlike the fabricated "home track" silliness of today, many Vernon regulars signed up for the GN race to test their skills vs. the NASCAR GN regular out-of-towners. One such driver was Chuck Mahoney who ended up making 16 career GN starts.

Home town regular Mahoney won the pole. The rest of the starting line-up seems to be undocumented. I find that omission ironic considering Otto's plan to have each lap leader during the race noted, documented and communicated.

Based on the race results, 23 drivers started the event. Joe Merola, however, was not among the 23. It's not clear if he and his Tucker didn't show or if he had some issue with the car causing him to miss the race.

Mahoney show Vernon's visitors the fast way around the track when the green dropped. He led the first 18 laps before surrendering the lead to Lloyd Moore. After a few laps out front, Bill Blair passed Moore on lap 25 and held serve the rest of the day.

Blair's pursuit of the win wasn't an easy one by any stretch of the imagination. Moore stayed in his shadows and the local, Mahoney, let it be known he was capable as well of pulling the upset.

As the end of the race drew near, Mahoney was running a solid third. He passed Moore to ease into second and had Blair in his sights. But on lap 180, he clipped a loose wheel on the track. The impact blew his right front tire and bent the axle. He had no choice but to find his crew for a tire change. But then he returned to the track to run the final 20 laps with his bent axle. Remarkably, Mahoney still salvaged a third place when the day was done.

Bill Blair was able to hold Moore at bay and led the remaining laps to capture the first of his three career GN wins. Ann Chester finished 22nd in the 23-car field. She was the 4th career woman to enter a NASCAR sanctioned event. The Vernon race was her first of two career GN starts.

NASCAR returned in October for a second GN race won by Dick Linder. However, NASCAR did not return to Vernon after 1950. As a matter of fact, the track quit hosting car races. The surface was turned into a horse racing facility. Later, car racing resumed nearby at the Utica-Rome Speedway.

Fin	Driver	Car
1	Bill Blair	'50 Mercury
2	Lloyd Moore	'50 Ford
3	Chuck Mahoney	'50 Mercury
4	Dick Burns	'50 Mercury
5	Lee Petty	'49 Plymouth
6	Bill Rexford	'49 Oldsmobile
7	Art Lamey	'49 Plymouth
8	Jimmy Florian	'50 Ford
9	Dick Linder	'50 Oldsmobile
10	Dick Clothier	'50 Plymouth
11	Pappy Hough	'50 Plymouth
12	Art Gill	'47 Ford
13	Ken Warmington	'49 Ford
14	Harry Sents	'47 Ford
15	Bill Bonner	'49 Dodge
16	Hugh Darragh	'49 Ford
17	Gene Austin	'50 Oldsmobile
18	Neil Cole	'49 Ford
19	Art Hammond	'47 Packard
20	Herb Thomas	'50 Plymouth
21	Glenn Dunaway	'49 Plymouth
22	Ann Chester	'47 Plymouth
23	Harland Holmes	'49 Ford

updated by @tmc-chase: 06/18/17 10:06:23AM

Tough week gets tougher - Jim Vandiver has passed

-RacersReunion® OUTREACH

Was really fortunate to meet Jim last October at Memory Lane Museum, get his autograph, and listen a few minutes to him about his era and the Americarna show with Ray Evernham.

Tough week gets tougher - Jim Vandiver has passed

-RacersReunion® OUTREACH

From a tweet by Huntersville United Methodist Church and James Funeral Home obituary:

http://jamesfuneralhomelkn.com/jim-vandiver

James E. Vandiver, Jr., 77, a native Charlottean and resident of Huntersville for more than 40 years, was called home on June 18, 2015. Jim was the definition of a positive attitude, never worrying about anything and always having a GREAT day. A retired NASCAR driver, Jim enjoyed success as an independent driver and was the actual winner of the 1969 inaugural Talladega race, though he described his family as his greatest accomplishment. Jim is survived by, according to him, the 4 greatest kids anybody could ever ask for including son Emory Vandiver and wife CJ of Belmont, son Rhett Vandiver of Davidson, daughter Nicole Bryan and husband Callan of Davidson and daughter Shannon Vandiver of Cornelius. He is also survived by brother Tommie Vandiver, sister Lillian Hoopaugh and grandchildren Rhett Vandiver, Blake Vandiver, Marlo Vandiver, Cal Bryan, Lily Bryan and Will Bryan. Jims parents, James E. Vandiver, Sr. and Lillian Fesperman Vandiver, and his brother Milton Ray Van Vandiver went before him to glory.

The funeral will be held at 4 p.m. on Monday, June 22nd at Jims church of over 40 years, Huntersville United Methodist Church with a viewing at 3:30 p.m. Family and friends are invited to celebrate Jims life, as he requested, with a party afterwards at The Pearl Wedding and Events Center in Cornelius at 5:30 p.m. A private burial will be held at Northlake Memorial Gardens. Memorials may be made to Huntersville United Methodist Church.

updated by @tmc-chase: 12/03/16 07:58:32PM

Racing History Minute - June 17, 1961

Stock Car Racing History

Thanks for that pic Dennis. NorwoodArena.com mentioned the auction and had a pic of it - but a very small one. This is a much better photo.